16th-17th century arms and armour from the territory of palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania
ENThe history of the Royal Palace of grand dukes of Lithuania is directly related to the castles of Vilnius, which in the 14th century comprised two castles combining one defence complex, namely, the Upper Castle and the Lower Castle. In 1520-1530 the Lower Castle was rebuilt, acquired some features of Renaissance style, and was used as the residence of the Grand Duke of Lithuania until the middle of the 17th century. This territory is distinguished by an impressive amount of findings, collected during archaeological research ongoing for more than 30 years. It is important that, in addition to the multitude of various household items and their fragments, some of the findings show military times of the castles of Vilnius and the Royal Palace. During the battles of the second half of the 17th century, most of the buildings of the castle burned and were demolished over time. The Lower Castle finally disappeared in 1800-1801, when it was sold for demolition to Moisey Slutsky, a merchant of Kremenchug (Urbanavičius 2010,11-14). The archaeological material of this territory sufficiently well reflects the final stage of the existence of the Royal Palace, i.e., the tragic events of August 1655, later actions of the Muscovites crew, the siege and the attacks, anchored there. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of the archaeological materials of the period under study and to incorporate some military artefacts in the scientific circulation. [From the publication]
